What is an opinion?

[BettyButtersBatter]

We are supposed to be going out tonight to a do, nothing heavy just a local club for drinks and a meet with newish friends. When I reminded him of this just now, he said "Oh no, I had forgotten about that! God!" I replied, Oh it'll be fun, we haven't been out out for ages! (We haven't been out out on a Saturday since last year)

He then said. "Yes we have - don't start. It's my opinion, I'm allowed to have one" I said, "That it's not an opinion, if its factually not true."

AIBU?

It led me to believe, what an opinion actually is? And, whether I'm right or he's right?

It’s an opinion because ‘ages’ is a subjective measure. Your idea of ages might be different from his.

If you’d ’We haven’t been out for XX months’ that would be a fact. ‘We haven’t been out for ages’ is an opinion because we all have different notions of ‘ages’.

It's a very topical question, though. We're seeing a lot of "opinions as facts" statements lately, some of them on important matters by people who should know better.

People say opinions can't be wrong and/or all opinions are valid. That's true if you're debating whether a Sunday pub lunch is "going out" or not - it's a matter of individual perception, which can't be wrong as it exists only in your mind, and everyone's entitled to a view on that sort of thing.

But when you say "opinions can't be wrong" meaning yours is RIGHT and everyone else is wrong, you've obviously got a problem. You aren't respecting opinions as personal ideas in people's heads. Yours is only more valid than mine if you've got verifiable data proving it - in which case it isn't an opinion, it's a statement of fact.

It's my opinion that "don't start" is a passive-aggressive power play. Glad you had a nice time!